Could you be one of them?

Two of our volunteers working aloft on James Craig

You might be anywhere – up the main mast on James Craig, cataloguing photographs, cleaning the bilges, guiding visitors, answering the phone, compiling statistics, organising an outing, counting nuts and bolts, making a film, crewing or maintaining one of the heritage vessels, or you might be involved in maintenance or restoration – a never-ending job for which we are famous!

As you can guess, restoration involves riveting, welding, sheetmetal work, wood-working skills and so on. What you might not realise is that we can teach you many of these skills and activities within the Fleet.

Our historic fleet also needs the special skills like steam engineering and riveting which are almost extinct and we aim to keep them alive on our vessels and in our Heritage Docks & Workshop by passing them on to others.

Besides these specialist skills, we also need plain ordinary jobs done; keeping things shipshape, for instance; painting and scraping; ‘rustbusting’; and tender loving care of the vessels and artefacts entrusted to us.

Intrigued?

Your time will be valuable to the Fleet – however much or little you have to give, and whatever your experience. Our volunteer members are aged from 16 to over 90 – both men and women.

Next step – read more below on ourFleet Discovery Day and book yourself on a rewarding experience!